


living for the hope of it all

by thelilacfield



Series: there is no world where i am not yours [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Androids, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Robot Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25686424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: "Tony...""Wanda...""I know you're trying to help-""Damn right I am. You were supposed to be one of those super lucky people who found their soulmate quickly and never had to worry about romance again. You're exactly the kind of person we want these androids to help. They're specifically programmed in order to offer companionship for people who have lost soulmates. People like you. And I meant him for you."
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: there is no world where i am not yours [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859725
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50





	living for the hope of it all

**A/N:** Day three of AU-gust! And you can read more about the challenge and see what else is coming **[here](https://augustwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/post/621653119656493056/the-list-of-prompts-was-completed-one-prompt-per#notes)**!

Please leave a comment if you enjoy this fic! I'm on tumblr and twitter **@ mximoffromanoff** if anyone wants to chat!

* * *

**START SEQUENCE INITIATED**

**ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE**

"Tony, I don't know if this is a good idea..."

"Most people would be thrilled to get to test out an exclusive prototype of new Stark Industries technology, you know."

"But...this isn't like the ARC reactors or some fancy new home security system. This...this is an _android_ , Tony."

"He has a name. He's my first successful model and his name is Vision. You should respect him."

**I AM VISION**

**TONY STARK CREATED ME**

**...WHERE AM I?**

"Tony..."

**VOICE NOT RECOGNISED**

" _Wanda_..."

**SEARCHING DATABASE**

"I know you're trying to help-"

"Damn right I am. You were supposed to be one of those super lucky people who found their soulmate quickly and never had to worry about romance again. You're exactly the kind of person we want these androids to help."

"I don't know, it's...it's only been six months since I lost him. I'm not...ready."

"You're not supposed to _fuck_ the android-"

" _Tony_!"

"They're specifically programmed in order to offer companionship for people who have lost soulmates. People like you. And I meant him for you, okay? I programmed him with interests like yours. Music and art and psychology and all that jazz."

"It's too much, Tony-"

"Wanda, darling, I'm a billionaire. If someone like me can't give their friends gifts to help their emotional state then who can?"

"People usually mean a bath bomb or some home baking when they say things like that. Not...state of the art technology that you haven't even told the public the specifics of yet."

"I don't want to raise people's hopes if we can't make lightning strike twice. But he's my magnum opus, Wanda. My greatest achievement."

"I suppose I'll tell Morgan you said that-"

"My greatest _professional_ achievement. You already won't babysit Morgan. If you won't accept my Vision, I'll be quite offended."

"Fine. _Fine_."

**SUBJECT DESIGNATION: TONY STARK**

"Come on, Vision. Don't be shy. This is Wanda Maximoff. You're going to be with her from now on."

**[dark hair green eyes white skin counting freckles approximately one hundred small freckles]**

"Um...hi, Vision. Is this how you prefer to be greeted?"

"That is appropriate, Ms. Maximoff. You do not have to greet me. I am here to help you."

"God, Tony, this is _weird_."

"You'll get used to it. I can't imagine life without FRIDAY and DUM-E anymore."

**PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: PROVIDE COMPANIONSHIP TO SUBJECT WANDA MAXIMOFF**

* * *

**ROUTINE: RISE AT SEVEN THIRTY ANTE MERIDIEM. PREPARE COFFEE FOR SUBJECT: WANDA MAXIMOFF. BREAKFAST MUST BE PREPARED DURING YOGA CLASS. SUBJECT: WANDA MAXIMOFF LEAVES FOR WORK AT NINE THIRTY AM. RETURNS AT SIX POST MERIDIEM. DINNER WILL BE DECIDED ON A NIGHTLY BASIS**.

"Please don't stare at me." She shifts in her chair, her gaze fixed on the television screen, not looking at him.

"I am ensuring that you are eating your meal. It is perfectly nutritionally balanced. Then I must ensure that you go to bed in order to get the optimal eight hours sleep."

"Aren't you supposed to be providing companionship?"

"My primary directive-"

"Don't _talk_ like that!" Her voice has risen in pitch and volume, sharp and hard, and her eyes narrow when she looks at him. He starts to count her freckles again, since every day has changed the number, before noticing the minute quiver in her lower lip.

"Oh...you are unhappy."

"Of course I'm fucking unhappy!" The words rip out of her. He's never heard a person speak like this before. The loudest voice he's heard was Mr. Stark's crow of triumph that became the first voice he heard when he was first booted up. He has never experienced the levels of heat and heart that are flying from Ms. Maximoff.

"Your heart rate is becoming elevated-"

"Don't analyse me!" She stands up and shoves her plate at him. His fingers fumble and it clatters to the floor, the sauce from her pasta leaking in a red circle onto the carpet. "Just...leave me alone."

**SEARCHING: CORRECT RESPONSE TO CLOSE COMPANION'S EMOTIONAL TRAUMA**

He scrubs the stain from the carpet and cleans the dishes he used to cook the food she threw aside. He uses the programme Mr. Stark installed to make himself appear human and goes to the corner store for some things he believes might help.

When he returns to the apartment, Ms. Maximoff is in the kitchen. He approaches her with caution, and gently sets a carton of ice cream down on the counter. "It is not nutritionally valuable," he says. "But my research told me that when you are sad, you might like to eat something that is dense in sugar."

She touches the edge of the carton's lid, and a slight soft smile crosses her lips. "How did you know mint chocolate chip is my favourite? Did Tony programme you with a bunch of knowledge on me? Are you the encyclopaedia of Wanda Maximoff?"

"I simply selected the flavour I believed you would like based on my observations of your eating habits," he says, and the smile falls away. "I believe I owe you an apology, Ms. Maximoff. I do not quite understand what I did to upset you, but I did, and I am very sorry for the emotional hurt I caused you. I would be grateful if you would tell me so I can avoid doing so in the future."

"I'm sorry," she says. A response he didn't expect, that causes him to blink at her in surprise. "I overreacted. It was just...when you start talking about my health, it reminds me of Simon."

"Oh...your soulmate."

She nods, looking down so her hair falls over her face, veiling her in dark shiny curtains. "He got me to start jogging when we first started dating," she says, a soft wistfulness veiling her expression. "I guess the soulbond makes you do crazy things."

He glances at her wrist, where the sleeve of her cardigan has rolled up. Mr. Stark told him the basics of her story, the bare bones of it all, and he can see her greyed-out soulmark. _Simon Williams_ looping across her wrist in open, warm handwriting. It makes something in him clench to think of a story cut short like that. Soulmates are supposed to last a lifetime, a prewritten happy ending. It isn't fair to think that the woman in front of him had to lose her soulmate. That is why his primary directive is to ease her pain in any way he can.

When she holds out a spoon to him and says, "Share with me," he does. He sits next to her in the warm light of her kitchen and eats ice cream. He has the moment with her.

The next day, he spends the time while she is at work baking cookies. When she gets home, he announces that they should order pizza, and she smiles. He watches her curl up on her couch in front of something utterly mindless on the television, her lips shiny with grease, and he wonders how he can balance helping her be both healthy and happy.

They go for a bike ride, and the wind whips colours he can't name into her cheeks. They are on the spectrum, of course. He should be able to find them.

But the whirring of his systems is sidelined for watching the brightness in her eyes when they reach the top of a windswept hill and wait to watch the sunset, a flask of tea between them. It's ruined by the brief moment where her head falls onto his shoulder before she starts away.

**ERROR: HEARTRATE ABNORMAL. DEPLOYING CALMING AGENT.**

* * *

Stormlight has turned the sky to a sickly yellow, and there are warnings about heavy rain and thunder flashing across the periphery of his vision. But he ignores the blinking words until they vanish politely away. It's all in favour of watching Wanda walk along the edge of the river, shiny boots splashing in the puddles, raindrops round on the surface of her waterproof jacket. She hasn't pulled her hood up, leaving her hair in damp waves, sticking to her cheeks and neck. Rain and cold has placed petals of pink across her cheeks, and there's a smile on her face when she turns back to look at him. "We should not stay out too long, Ms. Maximoff," he says, and she shakes her head.

A shock goes through him when her fingers close over his wrist, and he expects to see warnings of a power surge and imminent shutdown scroll across his vision. But she just pulls him after her, the umbrella he's holding over himself dripping rainwater onto his shoulders, and they're around the curve of the river and further into the deserted park. "You are going to catch your death, Ms. Maximoff."

"Please, Sokovia winters were worse than this," she says, tramping through a patch of thick mud that sucks at the soles of her boots. "I love the rain. Don't you like it?" She gives him a sideways glance and asks, "Are you waterproof? Have I dragged you out in a storm that's going to make you shut down?"

"No, Ms. Maximoff, I am in fact waterproof," he says, and she smiles like the sun sidling out from behind a cloud. A slice of a sunbeam, dragged out of the sky and placed on her pretty face. "I'm just wondering where we're going."

"Please call me Wanda, Ms. Maximoff makes me feel like I'm about to be told off by my boss," she says, and he lowers his gaze from his. "We're just wandering. It's special when it's like this, with no one here." She looks up at the rain-drenched trees as a clap of thunder rolls across the sky, and a wistful sort of smile graces her face. "I usually come here alone. It's nice to walk with someone."

"Did your soulmate like it here?" he asks, and a shadow crosses her face. "Oh, Ms. Maximoff...Wanda, I mean, I...I did not mean to cause you hurt."

"It's funny," she says, her voice quiet beneath the drum of the rain. "I never brought Simon here. We always walked in the woods instead, because there were these fields on the other side that he liked. And he never liked walking in the rain. He liked it to be just the right sort of sunny day, with a strong enough breeze that we wouldn't end up too hot. He talked about taking our kids to the fields one day for picnics."

"You loved him very much." He means it to be a plain observation, but the look on her face suggests that it may have sounded like a question.

"I loved him after a while," she says, slow and thoughtful. "When we first met, I didn't like him."

"But he was your soulmate."

"That's the thing," she says, and she turns to look at him. With her hair wet and her eyes shining green and the river at her back, she looks like some ethereal creature. Her freckles stand out on her pale face, the hollows of her cheekbones pronounced, and something in him ties itself in a knot. "I never liked the whole soulmate thing. I didn't want to be destined for someone and expected to immediately fall in love and get married and have kids. I wanted to live first. I was out on this travelling adventure when I met Simon. He was in Paris for work. I was there for the memories."

"That does sound romantic," he says, and she smiles slightly. A misty, nostalgic sort of smile. "Meeting your soulmate in the city of love."

"I told him when we realised we had each other's names that I wasn't interested in marrying him immediately," she says, and he stays quiet. Hearing her talk for so long feels like trying to stop a butterfly from fluttering away, like he has to stay statue still. He can't surprise her or she'll dart into the undergrowth like a startled rabbit. "We were much too young to stop everything for the sake of something destiny said. We decided then and there that we'd be together for at least two years before we even talked about getting married." Her face drops, her eyes darken, and she says, "If I'd thought back then we'd only get a year, well...I probably would have married him on the spot."

"I'm so sorry, Wanda." She looks up at him and he tries to give her a comforting smile. "I wish I could understand your feelings more."

"You know about the five stages of grief, right?" she asks, and he nods. "It's been six months, and I still...some days I think I've finally gotten to acceptance. Then I find one of his socks behind the couch, and I'm back to the denial and the anger and the depression. It's been almost nine months. I don't...I don't want to still feel like this after a year. I thought it would be better."

"It is my understanding that grief is not linear," he says, and she looks up at him. He sees the world in her eyes at that moment, and a heartrate warning flashes up at the edge of his vision. "You will not go smoothly from one stage of grief to the next. You lost your predestined soulmate, and that is a terrible loss to go through. After only a year together, it must be even more devastating to lose an apparent future. But you will get through this. And I will endeavour to support you in any way I can."

"Thank you, Vision." She says it so sweetly that it hurts in the hollows of his chest, and he nods slightly to hide his response. "You're supporting me just by being willing to come here with. You're the first person I've ever brought here."

"Oh, I'm not a person, Wanda."

"Yes you are."

Her words stay in his mind, glowing gold, when she finally begins to shiver and he insists they go home. She drips water all over the welcome mat, and he makes them both a cup of tea, sweetening hers exactly to her liking. They watch a film about the tangled dance from friends to lovers, and she curls up to him when he raises his core temperature for her, her hand resting on his chest.

When he sleeps that night, his mind doesn't run over the day's events before storing them in his memory bank like it usually does. It focuses on her, her eyes in the rain and her damp hair beneath his fingers and the weight of her body leaned into his.

He wakes far too early, before even the grey light of dawn, with the pink shape of her lips sending heat through his systems.

* * *

He's glad for memory banks, or he's not sure how he'd keep track of all the people in Wanda's apartment. Apparently it's her turn to host a Christmas dinner and gift exchange for her friends, and there are a good few people in the apartment, squashed around the table and knocking elbows as they pass bowls of vegetables and glasses of wine to each other. Lucky for him, he can keep track of Natasha Romanoff, former roommate, and her fiancé Bruce Banner. Sam Wilson and his boyfriend Joshua Garcia. Clint Barton and his pregnant wife, Laura Barton. Nebula MacMillan and her fiancée, Amanda Fournier, who everyone calls Mantis.

Clint is the oldest of the group, and they all seem very young to have established themselves in lifelong relationships. But he supposes that the soulmarks make everything much easier. Every time one of them reaches for something, sleeves slide up to expose the dark letters on their wrists, and he runs his fingers over his own wrist. He wonders what it would have been to be born human, to turn eighteen and have a name written on his skin, a destiny to chase. He thinks about Wanda's hushed confessions of resentment when her name came in, and he thinks that perhaps it's better to understand that his programming will always affect him. Better to have no thought of independence rather than the illusion of it.

He's startled out of his kitchen reverie when the door opens to Wanda and the tap of her heels. She looks wildly pretty in a red dress, her hair loose over shoulders covered only by slender velvet straps, a gold necklace glowing against her collarbones. He stares for so long that he starts when she says, "You can join us, you know. You don't need to hide out in here."

"It's alright," he says. "This is your time with your friends. I don't want to intrude."

"You're my friend too," she says, and warmth unfurls in his chest. She shifts her weight on her shoes, and says, "It might be nice to have you with us. I feel like a spare part in there." Sadness mists her expression and makes him long to comfort her as he says, "They've all got their soulmates. Nat is talking about bridesmaids dresses and Clint says Laura's having a girl this time and I can tell from the way Joshua is looking at Sam that he's definitely got him an engagement ring for Christmas. I just...I miss when I had that too."

"It's okay to miss that," he says, trying to be bracing and reassuring. "Maybe you could tell them to go home a little earlier. I would be happy to do it myself. I can say you have a headache?"

She smiles slightly, and he takes an encouraged step towards her. "You're sweet, Vizh," she says, and the rhythm of his system trips at the still-new nickname. She leans against him when he offers an arm, being her pillar of support just as his programming is written. But lately he wonders if it's still programming driving him, or if it's something else. If perhaps he is more human than Mr. Stark meant him to be.

But he pushes that vague hope away. He only wants to be that way for the thought of how Wanda might look at him if he was more like Simon, someone who could have a destined soulmate. Instead he says, "I like your necklace," and she reaches up to grip the ring on its chain, her eyes shining softly.

"My father got his soulmark on his eighteenth birthday," she says, "and he bought this ring the same day. My mother was four years younger than him, and he didn't meet her until he was thirty and she was twenty-six. He carried this ring every single day until he met her, and gave it to her as soon as he realised their names matched. Then they passed it on to me. They told me that it would bring me luck and happiness with my soulmate." She laughs hollowly. "Guess they were wrong."

"There's still happiness out there for you, Wanda," he says, and she looks up at him. He notices the slightly different angles of the wings of her eyeliner, her lashes spiky with mascara, and the way her red lipstick has smudged slightly on wine glasses, leaving an illusion of blurriness around her mouth.

Her lips part slightly, her pupils dark and shiny, and he blinks at her. Perhaps he's imagining it, or perhaps she's rising onto her tiptoes. Perhaps her hand is sliding up his arm like she's bracing herself, balancing against him. Perhaps she's slowly closing her eyes and he can smell her perfume and she's going to do something crazy.

Then there's the pop of a champagne cork in the dining room and a crow of triumph, and the spell is broken. She falls away, taking hope with her, and says, "I need to control them, I guess."

The final spin of her skirt before the door closes behind her leaves him empty. She leaves him confused and wanting in the kitchen, wishing he could be human and turn to the champagne bottle for an answer.

She could never have feelings for him. Feelings for her aren't a part of his programming. Yet he inexplicably feels them away.

Sleep evades him that night in favour of daydreams that she kissed him under the lurid kitchen lights.

* * *

"...and Nat was asking if we think she should go to Russia for her honeymoon, and Sam pointed out that going to Russia in winter is a terrible idea and then she said that she grew up there and remembers it and just because he wants his eventual honeymoon to just be an excuse to lie around on the beach barely-clothed doesn't mean she can't go and appreciate culture and history and her home country..."

"Russia is supposed to be lovely in the winter," he says. He's sorting the bags of groceries into categories on the counter, products for the fridge in one stack, products for the freezer in another, staples for the store cupboards in yet another. It occupies his hands and mind, keeps him from looking up to catalogue the ethereal being that is Wanda Maximoff. The grey cardigan tugged down over her wrists, the slightly sheer material of her white shirt, the subtle black on glossy black stripes of her trousers. Her lips and her eyes and her cheekbones and the way he aches to touch every feature of her face/

"So Clint was telling us that they've narrowed the baby name ideas down to Lila for a girl or Lewis for a boy. Clint likes Thomas but Laura says no because it means twin and she doesn't want to tempt fate even though they know she's only having one baby. But then he says that if they have a third child she doesn't want a surprise fourth along with it."

"Yes."

"What is wrong with you?" He looks up at that, startled. She's staring at him across the grocery bags, one eyebrow formed into a perfect skeptical arch. "Why are you being weird?"

"I'm not," he says, and she huffs.

"You've barely spoken to me all day," she says.

"We are speaking right now."

"You standing there giving one word responses to my rambling is not a conversation," she says sharply, and he looks down at the packets beneath his hand to avoid her eyes. "All you do is agree with me and then go quiet and you haven't even been sitting with me anymore. Isn't your primary directive to support me emotionally?"

"Yes, of course-"

"Because you're not supporting me right now," she says, and a wave of humiliation crashes over him.

"Nothing is wrong with me, Ms. Maximoff, and I apologise if I have lapsed in my duty in the last few days-"

"Cut the crap, Vizh, because you've reverted back to the Ms. Maximoff thing and there's clearly something going on," she says. And she reaches for his hand and the world tips sideways on its axis when her fingers fold around his, pulling him closer. His mouth goes dry and his head goes fuzzy and it doesn't make any sense that she makes him respond like this but she _does_. With her eyes filled with concern and her lips slightly parted, the way they shape her words making his chest hurt. "Just tell me. I don't want there to be any distance between us."

He kisses her. Like someone who deserves her. Like her soulmate. And he wants to pull back but he's caught up in the soft silken warmth of her lips against his, in the realisation of the dreams that have haunted him night after night, in her fingers tightening momentarily around his before they loosen and her grip vanishes completely. Then he reels away from him, realising what he did. Feeling welling up in his chest and his voice coming out breathless and terrified and trembling when he says, "I'm sorry, I...I shouldn't have, I...I'm sorry."

She's staring at him, her eyes wide, and he stares at her lips for a moment. He knows how they feel on his now, feels the ghostly weight of her kiss on him, and when he touches his face his fingers come away shiny and wet and he says, "Wanda, I...I think I'm malfunctioning."

"You're crying, Vizh," she says softly. And, wonder of wonders, she moves closer to him, her hand curving to his cheek as her thumb brushes a tear away. A streak of silver on her skin, and her thumb returns to his cheekbone, caressing a gentle arc over his skin. "Vizh, all of this...all your weirdness, was it...do you have feelings for me?"

"I am incapable of emotion, Wanda."

"Honey, you're crying," she says, and a strange squeaky sound caught somewhere between a laugh and sob rips out of him.

"I don't deserve you," he says. "You had a soulmate and I will never have one. I'm not human, I...I can never give you children or marriage or anything that Simon would have given you, so I can't...you should call Mr. Stark and tell him I'm malfunctioning and get a replacement who will provide you the companionship you truly need because you are very special, Wanda, and you deserve to be happy-"

She silences him with a kiss that sends a shock through his systems, and he finds himself getting lost in her. His eyes drifting closed and her perfume overwhelming him when she wraps her arms around his neck and rises higher onto her tiptoes to deepen the kiss. A warning of rapidly rising core temperature and unusual heartrate flashes orange at the edge of his vision, but he wipes it away and focuses on her. The lack of words to describe this moment.

When the kiss ends, he stays in the darkness for a long time, savouring the sweetness. Then her thumb runs over his cheekbone again, and he opens his eyes into her warm green gaze, her gentle shining smile. "You say I deserve to be happy," she says, "And you make me happy."

"But I'm not-"

"I think you're everything I didn't know I needed," she says softly, and when she leans up this time he's ready.

With her in his arms and her lips on his, he forgets that there are groceries still needing to be put away.

* * *

Wanda is sharing his umbrella today. Her black coat is tight to her waist, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail that draws attention to the perfect structure of her face. They walk step in step along the stone paths of the graveyard, their hands tangled, and he stays silent out of respect for her.

He steps back when they reach the gravestone, letting her have her moment alone. He waits under the umbrella and watches her through the raindrops falling from the edges of the plastic, reading the inscription still bright on the grave. _**SIMON MONTGOMERY WILLIAMS, 1994-2019. 'WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS.'**_

They stay silent, and he's grateful to not have to search for the right words to say. Wanda stays kneeling at Simon's grave, laying down the bouquet of carefully selected flowers in front of the pale grey stone. Lilies and white chrysanthemums and pink carnations, a message of regret and honour and eternal love. He would never want to stand in the way of the soulbond, or ask that Wanda forgets her feelings for Simon. For him, every new day where she doesn't push him away is its own small miracle.

When she straightens up again, he takes her hand once more. They walk the rainwashed streets to the same park where he first realised how beautiful she is, with a flask of tea in his pocket and the rain easing off to grim grey skies. He pours her a cup of tea and watches her drink it, the rising steam curling colour into her cheeks, and he finally asks, "Are you alright?"

"I am," she says, and looks up to give him a smile. It's small and faded, but it's real, not the tight sort of smile she used to give anyone who brought up Simon in her presence. "Maybe I've hit stage five."

"Acceptance?" he asks, and she nods.

"There's a mark on my wrist to make sure I'll never forget him," she says. "And we still had our time together and got to fall in love. He was a part of my life that I resented and then came to love." She takes his hand in hers, so gentle, and lifts his chin to look into his eyes. "And losing him brought me you."

"But wouldn't you rather have your soulmate-"

"I just want to be with someone who loves me," she says, and he ducks his head, overwhelmed. "I don't care whether a name on my wrist says they're destined for me or not. You are enough, Vizh."

That promise echoes sweetly on and on in his mind when he leans down to kiss her.


End file.
